05-05 The Technology
When I was a boy of eight, I found it fun to use a magnifying glass to focus the rays of the sun to burn a hole in a piece of paper. Well, this is one form of solar energy which is called CSP or Concentrated Solar Power.With the use of mirrors, the heat of…
05-06 Small
Chatting with owners of homes in the Lake Chapala district of Mexico, I discovered they all had installed solar on the rooves of their homes at a cost of about $6K US. Assume this kind of installation in Canada would cost about $25K. And, this was done not because of their concern about the environment,…
05-07 Elon Musk
Pay attention world. High winds in California have required the state utility company to shut down operations cutting off 2 million people from power. Something big is happening.Apparently, power lines thrown down by high winds are responsible for wildfires that cause billions of dollars in damage. Climate change stuff.My California relatives have been busy buying…
05-08 Canada
Are we good guys or bad guys? Well, like China we are major producers of fossil fuels and major users of renewables.There is wind power in windy PEI. And a biggie is biomass or wood chips as fuel for generating electricity. Thanks here to our pulp and paper industry. The biggest renewable, of course, is…
05-09 News
A mega solar project in Dubai has just been approved with a projected cost of electrical energy of less than 2 cents US per kilowatt-hour (KWH). This project is using conventional silicon photovoltaic technology.Most of the new large solar projects around the world bring in energy in the range of 3-10 cents.This news is significant…
05-10 Solar Farming
It would be no surprise to anyone that farmland is an obvious place to put a solar panel facility. And this, of course, represents a new source of farm income. The photo shows a relatively large prosperous farm that has several acres of solar panels providing energy for the farm and feeding surplus energy into…
05-11 Solar Politics
Germany is interesting because they are not the sunniest nation in Europe, and yet, they lead in solar applications. The secret is 1.5 million homes with solar on their rooves, all subsidized by the state.This does not mean that Europe has gone completely solar. They are getting rid of coal for generating electricity, but in…